UK: Former EDL leader to help launch anti-Islam movement Pegida in Britain

Former English Defence League leader, Tommy Robinson, will help launch a new anti-Islam movement in the UK. Robinson whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, quit the EDL and appeared to renounce his right-wing views in October 2013.

Anti-immigrant group Pegida was founded in Dresden, eastern Germany in 2014. It is an acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident, and has attracted tens of thousands to rallies across Germany.

The 33-year-old will begin work in the New Year and he says he will provide advice to their leadership. He says he wants to campaign to ban all Muslim immigration to the UK for five years, as well as banning the building of any new mosques.

"My views are righteous," he told Channel 4. "But the EDL wasn't the right way. We have no time for homophobes now. We don't want anyone who hates Jews. We want families. We want moderate Muslims."

Robinson has recently served a prison sentence for mortgage fraud and has addressed Pegida demonstrations of up to 40,000 people in the past. Robinson told The Independent the new group will be "moderate", saying: "Opposing Islam is not far-right, it doesn't make you an extremist and it doesn't make you a bigot. It's decent not to want Sharia law.

"The truth in 2015 has been deemed hatred. It's not, it's honesty." He also admits that the boozy culture of the EDL was an oversight. He said: "I was ashamed. But we were young and angry."

Since quitting the EDL, Robinson has worked with anti-extremism think tank Quilliam. Focusing predominantly on Islam they claim to be the world's first counter-terrorism think tank.

Germany's immigration crisis, with one million expected to arrive in 2015, and Angela Merkel's open-door immigration policy have sparked a resurgence for the Pegida group.